Dedicated customer experience specialists, Sabio, first emerged in 1998 with the vision of transforming the relationships between businesses and their customers. Today, Sabio’s ability to create engaging and memorable experience solutions for brands is more important than ever as organisations discover just how valuable client satisfaction can be.
During my time at Avaya Engage 2019, I had the opportunity to catch up with the Group CEO of Sabio, Andy Roberts, as well as the VP of Commercial Strategy for Sabio, Michael Andrews, to talk more about the changing nature of customer experience, and what we can expect going forward.
Tell Us About Sabio
Andy Roberts has a long history with Sabio, though he hasn’t always acted as Group CEO. During 18 years working with the brand, Roberts has been involved in multiple roles, including commercial director, operations director and more. He told me that the defining feature of Sabio is their commitment to customer experience.
Since its inception, Sabio has been a pioneering company in customer experience solutions intended to combine the digital world, and the human service environment. “We’re best known for customer experience, but our legacy is in the contact centre, with about 95% of our business in this space. Our presence in the contact centre has grown to international levels at this point.”
Sabio focuses primarily on selling to enterprise companies, and they have some impressive clients, as well as excellent partnerships with industry leaders like Avaya, and Verint.
What Kind of Customer Experience Trends Did You See in 2018?
The term “customer experience” was certainly buzz-worthy during 2018. Over the years, consumers have begun to take more control over their buying journey, and today, experience has more value than product features or price when it comes to dictating purchasing decisions.
According to Andy, being able to provide seamless experiences for customers was crucial last year, and it continues to be an important point today. “This is a massive trend that we’ve seen. Whether it means investing in AI or virtual assistants, it’s important to have a strategy in place that allows you to give your clients the right service, no matter where or how they interact with you.”
VP of Commercial Strategy for Sabio, Michael Andrews also noted that Sabio has been seeing a lot of European clients experimenting with the use of different kinds of digital engagement technologies over the last year.
“I think there’s no doubt that we’re going to see the use of this disruptive technology accelerate – particularly in the space of conversational self-service. We’re all getting used to having devices that we can interact with in a conversational way, and we’re seeing that kind of engagement make a huge difference to customer service. The ability to understand what your customer needs and automatically fulfil that request or direct them to the right person to solve their problems is crucial.”
What’s the Customer Appetite Like for Emerging Technologies?
With so many new and emerging technologies like digital assistants and new messaging platforms in the marketplace, I wondered whether Sabio had noticed any persevering trends in customer appetite towards new solutions. Michael and Andy both agreed that there seems to be an additional level of collaboration with end users today, who are willing to work alongside vendors on the development of solutions applying AI technologies and service automation.
“I think organisations are recognising how important it is to embrace the right mindset for experimentation and growth.
“Our market is experiencing a lot of disruption, and we’re seeing a lot of new channels and technologies that customers want to use.”
The Sabio duo told me that this quarter, Sabio is launching a new brand with a focus on three main areas: Sabio Solutions, Sabio Insights, and Sabio Digital. Although the company will continue to grow their presence in their core technology space, they’re also seeing significant demand for the parts of their company that focus on new and disruptive innovations too. “I think a lot of our clients are looking at a range of solutions, whether it’s augmenting their voice service platforms with automated chatbot assistants, or supporting employee growth with workforce optimisation.”
What Has Been the Biggest Takeaway from Avaya Engage?
Since we were talking at Avaya Engage, I was interested to see what Michael and Andy felt they had been able to takeaway from the event so far. They told me that throughout Chapter 11, Sabio had remained loyal and committed to Avaya. “We believed fundamentally in the experience that we could deliver through and with Avaya. What really struck us during that time is the openness that Jim Chirico showed, and his commitment to transparency with partners and customers.”
The two men from Sabio told me that they saw significant opportunities to take their offerings further with Avaya, particularly when considering the amount of support that they’d had from the team so far. “I think the strength of the relationships and connections that we’ve built have been really significant.”
“We believe that the Avaya contact centre platform is a leading solution, and they have an amazing vision of the future.”
“If you combine that with their excellent customer base, it’s safe to say that Avaya has a lot to offer.”
Sabio’s representatives also noted that much of their heritage is based around a few key partners that they’ve worked with over the years. Those partners include Nuance, Avaya and Verint. “Now that Avaya and Verint have renewed their relationship and they’re working closely together again, I think there’s even more opportunity there. Avaya certainly seems a lot more focused on their strategic partnerships this year.”
